Please, see docs:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/Getline_002fPipe.html#Getline_002fPipe
According to POSIX, `expression | getline' is ambiguous if expression contains
unparenthesized operators other than `$'âfor example, `"echo " "date" | getline'
is ambiguous because the concatenation operator is not parenthesized. You should
write it as `("echo " "date") | getline' if you want your program to be portable
to other awk implementations.
gawk 'BEGIN{ ("date " "+%Y") | getline year}'
... works fine.
Sorry, closing as NOTABUG.

I disagree.
The new implementation is totally incompatible with all previous versions.
There was never any abiguity.
The alternative interpretation:
"one" ("two" | getline)
can never have any sensible purpose because getline returns an integer result
but it wouldnt be clear exactly how that might be combined with the "two".
So what on earth is the value in the above parentheses?
I cannot understand why anyone would want to implement a precedence which always
leads to meaningless statements.
Sorry, you and POSIX are quite wrong. But that wouldn't be the first time.

From upstream mailing list:
> Arnold, will you accept these patches?
I am inclined at the moment not to accept the patches. They add considerable
complexity to the grammar to fix what is, in my opinion, a corner case, and
one that should be parenthesized anyways. This issue is also documented in
the gawk manual.
Closing as NOTABUG.

But these patches are being added to the mainstream source. So does this mean
that Fedora/RedHat are now going to be creating their own branch of gawk?
Also, the patches were added by the same person whose patches created the
problem in the first place. Shouldn't it therefore mean that Fedora/Redhat
should not have accepted the original faulty patches?
Also, the patches do not add considerable complexity to the grammar. Besides
most gawk users do not read the code so what on earth has complexity got to do
with it? It is more important for things to work properly.
If life was about eliminating complexity then you wouldn't have a car.

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